ANTISTROPHE V. CASSANDRA. Ha! ha! the work proceeds! From the bull keep back the cow! Lo! now she seizes him By the strong black horn,[n75] and now She hath wrapt him round with slaughter; She strikes! and in the water Of the bath he falls. Mark well, In the bath doth murder dwell. {75} ANTISTROPHE VI. CHORUS. No prophetic gift is mine The dark saying to divine, But this sounds like evil quite; For to mortal man was never The diviner's voice the giver Of a message of delight, But in words of mazy mourning, Comes the prophet's voice of warning, With a lesson of affright. STROPHE VII. CASSANDRA. Fill the cup, and brim the woe! 'Tis my own heart's blood must flow. Me! miserable me! From old Troy why didst thou bring me, Poor captive maid, to sing thee Thy dirge, and die with thee? STROPHE VIII. CHORUS. By a god thou art possessed, And he raveth in thy breast, And he sings a song of thee That hath music, but no glee. Like a dun-plumed nightingale,[f25] That, with never-sated wail, Crieth Itys! Itys! aye,[n76] As it scatters, in sweet flow, The thick blossoms of its woe,[n77] So singest thou to-day. ANTISTROPHE VII. CASSANDRA. Ah! the clear-toned nightingale! Mellow bird, thou dost not wail,[f26] For the good gods gave to thee A light shape of fleetest winging, A bright life of sweetest singing, But a sharp-edged death to me. {76} ANTISTROPHE VIII. CHORUS. By a god thou art possessed, And he goads thee without rest, And he racks thy throbbing brain With a busy-beating pain, And he presses from thy throat The heavy struggling note, And the cry that rends the air. Who bade her tread this path, With the prophecy of wrath, And the burden of despair? STROPHE IX. CASSANDRA. O the wedlock and the woe Of the evil Alexander, To his chiefest friends a foe! O my native stream Scamander, Where in youth I wont to wander, And was nursed for future woes, Where thy swirling current flows! But now on sluggish shore Of Cocytus I shall pour, 'Mid the Acherusian glades, My divinings to the shades. STROPHE X. CHORUS. Nothing doubtful is the token; For the words the maid hath spoken To a very child are clear. She hath pierced me to the marrow; And her cry of shrieking sorrow Ah! it crushes me to hear. ANTISTROPHE IX. CASSANDRA. The proud city lieth lowly, Nevermore to rise again! It is lost and ruined wholly; And before the walls in vain Hath my pious father slain Many meadow-cropping kine, To appease the wrath divine. Where it lieth it shall lie, Ancient Ilium: and I {77} On the ground, when all is past, Soon my reeking heart shall cast.[n78]